Spotlight – TANOE Businesshttps://tanoebusiness.com
The Hub of Hope for African EntrepreneursThu, 21 Mar 2019 11:19:06 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.9How to pitch your startup at Nairobi Innovation Weekhttps://tanoebusiness.com/how-to-pitch-your-startup-at-nairobi-innovation-week/
https://tanoebusiness.com/how-to-pitch-your-startup-at-nairobi-innovation-week/#respondWed, 20 Mar 2019 09:46:52 +0000https://tanoebusiness.com/?p=5936Applications have opened for the NIW.Startups programme at the annual Nairobi Innovation Week, which offers Kenyan businesses the chance to showcase their solutions at the event.

NIW.Startups is a platform for discovering and showcasing Kenya’s most promising startups, and connect them with investors and other partners.

It is part of the annual Nairobi Innovation Week, which will take place June 10-14, and will see 30 startups selected to pitch and six recognised as overall winners.

The thematic areas for this year are in line with the Nairobi Innovation Week 2019 theme “Innovation and Kenya’s Big Four Agenda”, and startups in sectors as diverse as agriculture, health, manufacturing, housing, renewable energy, education, fintech, gaming, and e-commerce are invited to apply.

Announcing its launch, Ampion Ventures said in a statement on Tuesday (12 March) that it aims to build scalable business models in selected African countries by providing seed capital and strategic expertise support to startups.

The company builder said Berlin based Plutos Ventures Holding will provide Ampion Ventures with its first seed financing.

Ampion Ventures will focus on the agritech, energy and fintech verticals

Responding to Ventureburn questions on Tuesday, Guhl (pictured above) said the venture builder will provide “up to six-digit (dollar) funding”.

He explained that although the firm is seeking pre-seed and early-stage ventures, it will also consider applications from individual entrepreneurs.

However, he declined to disclose just how much it would receive from the firm — saying only that the Plutos Venture Group would provide “continuous and open-ended funding” to Ampion Ventures.

He explained that although there are no “hard limitations” as to which countries Ampion Ventures will invest in, the company builder prefers investing in firms from “key economies” on the continent, singling out Nigeria and Kenya.

“But we consider smaller countries like Rwanda too as great hubs to conduct a pilot test for new models,” he added.

Ampion Ventures will specifically focus on the agritech, energy and fintech verticals.

In addition to providing startup capital, Amplion Ventures will offer local startups with operational and strategic support, a “strong network”, and international corporate partnership opportunities.

Guhl is no stranger to Africa’s tech scene, having worked for years with the some of the continent’s founders and early-stage startups through Ampion. The NGO, which Guhl founded, supports African startups focused on making a social and economic impact in their local communities.

Between 2013 and 2016, Guhl travelled to a total of 23 African countries, covering 16 of these — including Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Rwanda, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Benin — while on The Ampion Venture Bus, the organisation’s flagship initiative.

In all, over the past six years Ampion claims to have supported over 80 startups — including Nigerian accounting platform Accounteer, medtech Yapili and Ivorian cleantech Coliba— while working with partners like MTN, SAP, Merk and Microsoft.

]]>https://tanoebusiness.com/african-startups-can-tap-up-to-six-digit-funding-with-launch-of-ampion-ventures/feed/0Black Entrepreneur Beats Apple And Samsung At Launching America’s First 5G Smartphonehttps://tanoebusiness.com/black-entrepreneur-beats-apple-and-samsung-at-launching-americas-first-5g-smartphone/
https://tanoebusiness.com/black-entrepreneur-beats-apple-and-samsung-at-launching-americas-first-5g-smartphone/#respondFri, 15 Mar 2019 12:55:33 +0000https://tanoebusiness.com/?p=5897Black history should be celebrated 365 days a year, and inventor Freddie Figgers is proving why as he is slated to become the first African American techpreneur to revolutionize the smartphone industry! He has already released and developed several innovative smart phones, but his newest phone, the Figgers F3: The first 5G smartphone in America, features an all new state of the art sleek design.

The Figgers F3 changes the narrative on the power of the smart phone as we know it. It comes equipped with a magnetic resonance wireless charging capability that allows users to charge the phone when they are within 5 meters of the Figgers Super Base charger. No cords or cables keep the phone in your pocket.

Even more, users can take their story anywhere with the F3’s waterproof capability. They can also see the world as it is with the 4K Ultra High Definition screen and dual 18 megapixel cameras.

In addition, users will never run out of storage, and can free themselves from the cloud because the Figgers F3 smartphone has a record breaking storage capacity of 1TB.

The device will come factory unlocked, and will work on every mobile operator in every country in the world.

]]>https://tanoebusiness.com/black-entrepreneur-beats-apple-and-samsung-at-launching-americas-first-5g-smartphone/feed/0Ghanaian software engineer Maureen Biney wins top tech UK innovator awardhttps://tanoebusiness.com/ghanaian-software-engineer-maureen-biney-wins-top-tech-uk-innovator-award/
https://tanoebusiness.com/ghanaian-software-engineer-maureen-biney-wins-top-tech-uk-innovator-award/#respondWed, 13 Mar 2019 09:42:05 +0000https://tanoebusiness.com/?p=5879Such a proud moment for Ghana and women in tech on the African continent and on a day such as the International Women’s Day there’s no better moment than now to share the strides being made by female Ghanaian software engineers such as Maureen Biney! I came across her recent Innovator Award presented to her by EveryWomanUK whilst scrolling through my Instagram feed and I instantly had to give her my accolades for her incredible contributions in the tech industry.

Maureen Biney is a Ghanaian software engineer working at AMEX in the United Kingdom. Before moving to the UK she worked at worked at Ringier on e-commerce and an applicant tracking systems. She was nominated for by EveryWoman in Tech UK Awards at the end of last year. The Innovator award (sponsored by Equiniti) was awarded to a woman designing, developing, researching, implementing or being exceptionally creative with technology in an unconventional and innovative way.

What current work in the tech industry are you involved in outside your existing role at American Express?

Outside of my core role at American Express, I volunteer at Code Club at a local school to teach children how to code. We usually do Scratch, and we started using Blender late last year.

At work, we usually have our colleagues’ children (between the ages of 7 and 12) come into the office for an all-day programming session. We take them through robotics, html, programming the Arduino and micro: bit.

I also volunteered to teach front-end design as part of Code Girls which is now known as Tech Girls. This is aimed at girls in schools in the Sussex area. The sessions are run as a mini career fair where the girls rotate in groups to each of the ‘stands’ to learn about different careers (Front-end development, cryptography, Security, QA etc.) in IT.

I am also a member of the Women in Tech Colleague network at Amex. As part of that, I organize monthly round-table sessions with Vice-President’s and Senior Vice-Presidents s at work. These are very informal sessions where attendees get to hear about the VPs career journeys and get to ask them questions.

I also recently started running the Learn New Tech Series (with my colleague Nelly Kiboi) for the campus we work at. These are lunch and learn sessions for people in tech and outside of tech to learn tech-related topics. The sessions are aimed at women, but we welcome men with open arms too. The first one was a Javascript session which was so popular that we have run the same thing about 5 different times. We have had colleagues from HR, Finance, Treasury and product managers attending.

I have also developed a database application for healthcare facilities in Ghana to use to keep patient information. This is currently being used by 4 hospitals, and I am looking to do some more work on that and get more hospitals on board.

What field do you work in and what’s your area of expertise?

I am in the field of Financial Technology and I am currently a Java Engineer, but I have been in a variety of tech roles at Amex. I have done .NET development, Technical Analysis, Product Management, Data Engineering. I quite like that I have been able to move around a lot to do different things within Technologies.

Why and how did you got into tech?

Growing up, I really didn’t think I will be in tech :D. At home, we had a computer teacher who used to come every Saturday to give us lessons in DOS lol. I remember I used to love Mavis Beacon and that’s just as far as it went. I loved learning French so much I thought I wanted to learn some more languages and work in the UN. When the time came for university, I knew I wanted to study in Ghana, so I went to Ashesi University (the best decision) I have made in life.

I was confused about what I wanted to study at Ashesi. There were three degrees at Ashesi when I was there – Computer Science, Management Information Systems and Business Administration. I chose MIS because that gave me an opportunity to choose modules from both Computer Science and Business Admin. My first ever programming module was Visual Basic. And that is how I fell in love with technology. I used one mid-semester break to try all sorts of things with VB – I even built a calculator with it.

After that, I wanted to do more and more of it and learn other languages. I am particularly excited about how technology can be used to make business processes efficient, faster, cheaper and of the highest quality. Maybe I like being bossy and telling the computer what to do 😀

What Is your opinion on diversity in the tech space?

I really hope we can get to that point where this will be a normal thing so that we wouldn’t have to talk about it. There isn’t a lot of female representation in technology but I feel this is improving a lot.

I know some super amazing women in tech at Amex and outside Amex and I look up to a lot of them. But it isn’t just about gender, but ethnicity, sexual orientation too.

How has it been balancing work as a software engineer and being an amazing mum?

Not a lot of people know that I am a mum and I laugh about it all the time. It is the most incredible thing that I have had to do, and the most amazing feeling! I love it. Amex is very, very supportive of working parents.

The flexibility that comes with working at Amex is great, and I don’t know if I will find that anywhere. Don’t get me wrong, parenting is hard work (very hard work) but there is a level of satisfaction that comes with it that I won’t trade for anything else. I am still learning something new about myself and Aria every day.

I don’t sleep much, so when my daughter is sleeping and not asking 1 million questions, I use the time to work, or put my feet up. One day, I’ll tell the world all about her!

]]>https://tanoebusiness.com/ghanaian-software-engineer-maureen-biney-wins-top-tech-uk-innovator-award/feed/0I turned a project work into business – The story of Foodstuffhomehttps://tanoebusiness.com/i-turned-a-project-work-into-business-the-story-of-foodstuffhome/
https://tanoebusiness.com/i-turned-a-project-work-into-business-the-story-of-foodstuffhome/#respondThu, 07 Mar 2019 09:36:28 +0000https://tanoebusiness.com/?p=5825Most often, we cry out loud with disappointment about how the many project-works of students have gathered dust on the shelves of academic institutions and are not translated into viable business ideas to address a need in our societies. Well, someone in fact, a young lady has changed the status quo.

In this week’s B&FT’s Inspiring Startups, read how Aba transformed an assignment she was given in school into a practical business idea that has come to solve a need in society.

Millicent Aba Tetteh was born in Kumasi, Ashanti Region of Ghana. She is a graduate of the Ghana Institute of Journalism, where she obtained a degree in public relations and completed in 2016.

The beginning of her entrepreneurial journey is quite an interesting one. It all began in 2015 while in university. Her class was given an assignment to prepare a brief about a company. The assignment required that they choose a company and write how they could rebrand it and improve on the services or goods it delivers.

While all her friends chose big companies to use for this project, Aba wanted to do something different. She chose to rebrand her mother’s business and guess what kind of business her mother did? She sold foodstuffs in the market. Aba worked on how she could make her mother’s business better through delivery and packaging, and presented it to the lecturer. Well, it won her very good grades and she thought of translating it into a real business plan after school.

So, when she completed university in 2016 Aba wasted no time trying to search for job; she decided to continue what she had started as a project work.

Foodstuffhome gets to work

Aba named the business Foodstuffhome, and immediately implemented the project work she started in school. She created social media accounts for the business and started with a walk-in service whereby customers would come to her shop themselves and pick up the items they pre-ordered. Quite soon, she added a home delivery service whereby a dispatch rider takes products straight to the client at a place of his or her convenience.

The idea behind this is to make life comfortable for people so that they do not go through the hustle and bustle of going to a market to get good foodstuff for themselves. She has in stock all kinds of foods—cassava, plantain, yam, meats, fresh and dried fish, fruits, vegetables, snails, mushrooms and many more.

As the business grew, she introduced another unique service: foodstuff hampers as gift items for occasions such birthdays, Christmas and other parties – and people love the concept.

Foodstuff home accepts payment after delivery and that gives clients the opportunity to inspect the foods before they pay.

Another unique thing about Foodstuff home is that clients can get their order within an hour of request, based on the proximity and what they requested for. The company has gained the trust of clients so well that, about 100 clients contact within a month. To get regular supply of good food stuff, Aba and her team works directly with farmers and other reliable suppliers they trust.

Again, they also package food stuff for people travelling outside the country and want to take local foods along.

Presently, the startup also exports foodstuff outside the country to the United States, United Kingdom and other parts of Europe.

Vision

Aba’s vision for Foodstuff home is to expand it and make it a one-stop door-to-door delivery service where the foods will be in a delivery van and moved from place to place to get them closer to customers.

Challenges

The first challenge she encountered was the acceptance rate. When she began, it was difficult to convince people to buy food stuff they have not personally seen and selected. But with time, as they realised the benefits of a hassle-free shopping and with Aba also making sure all products delivered are in good condition, people started giving it a chance.

Another challenge she still grapples with is location. Even though there is Ghana Post GPS and google map which have come to lessen the frustration of finding the location of people, the challenge still remains with people who are not tech savvy.

How education has helped

For someone who studied public relations, she has appreciated the benefits of branding and good communication. These are the two main things that have won her the trust of many customers and they find it easy to communicate with her.

Again, through this job, she has learned a lot about foods and their seasons. As a result, she knows how to plan ahead for stock, what prices to sell at, and how to preserve them well.

How government should assist startups

For Aba, there are many brilliant business ideas locked up in the minds of people due to lack of capital. So, she says, government should widen the scope of its support systems to make funds easily accessible to startups so that many jobs will be created.

Again, she feels entrepreneurship should not only be taught in the university. It should start right from basic school so that from infancy, people will consider it among their options when choosing careers in life.

Advice to the youth

“Once you are determined and hardworking, you will achieve whatever you want to achieve. So, my simple advice to the youth is that they should be determined and hard-working in life.”

DGN Online understands that she is taking over from lawyer Edward Osei.

According to information available to DGN Online, the Dirctor-General of GPHA informed management of Tema Port on Sunday, March 3, 2019 about the new order.

The announcement was said to have been made by the Director-General during a meeting held around 4:00pm on the aforementioned date.

She was employed in 2003 as a lawyer. GPHA sponsored her to do maritime law at the world maritime university in Sweden in 2004.

]]>https://tanoebusiness.com/tema-port-gets-new-director/feed/0Second West Africa Business Excellence Awards slated for May 17https://tanoebusiness.com/second-west-africa-business-excellence-awards-slated-for-may-17/
https://tanoebusiness.com/second-west-africa-business-excellence-awards-slated-for-may-17/#respondFri, 01 Mar 2019 08:56:32 +0000https://tanoebusiness.com/?p=5790The ‘West Africa Business Excellence Awards’, an initiative of KN Unique Communications in partnership with Strategic Accountancy Africa and West Africa Chamber of Commerce and Industry provides a platform to recognize individuals and companies that play a significant role in the development of various sectors in West Africa.

Chief Executive Officer of KN Unique Communications, Oheneba Kwabena Kena said the awards scheme is to promote and celebrate the outstanding achievements of organizations and individuals in the West African business region. This year’s event will be hosted in Ghana at Marriott Hotel on 17th May 2019, where we will recognize the outstanding businesses that contribute to the economy across various award categories.

According to him, the theme of the awards “Propelling Outstanding Businesses to the World” focusses on identifying outstanding organisations, exploring partnerships and business networking that will support the development of the West African business and corporate community.

Mr. Oheneba Kwabena Kena noted that the awards, which has huge media awareness will showcase business excellence in West Africa’s industries and sectors to the global stage.

The Communications Director of West Africa Chamber of Commerce and Industry stated that “KN Unique Communications has brought excellent initiatives to the business community of West Africa and we are happy to endorse and partner in this wonderful event that supports the development of the West African business and corporate community”

Mr. Patrick Nana Asiedu, Director of Partnerships of Strategic Accountancy Africa stated that “There has been a solid growth in the economy of West Africa over the years despite a difficult times and seasons faced. This steady growth is fundamentally due to the resilience of outstanding businesses and individuals. The time to celebrate excellence is now”

Dr. Amuah shrugged off competition from some of the best HR minds in industry and top multinational firms to pick up the coveted award. The Ghana Human Resources Innovation Awards is an annual celebration of leading human resource practitioners and organizations with topnotch HR models who have made sterling contributions to the corporate sector over the years.

Dr Hazel Berrard Amuah did not only walk away with the top award but was also listed on the most sought-after 2019 top 20 HR Leaders in Ghana log. She was previously in the top 50 but her sterling performance has pushed her further up into the top 20.

The human resource function plays a pivotal and strategic role in sustaining organizational growth in a highly competitive global environment. Dr. Amuah in an interview said, “I am really humbled by this recognition, I thank God for the honour, for the support of my team and my family. I believe this award goes to underscore the importance of HR services in every organizations the deep connection to both the successes of businesses and the people”.

Guinness Ghana bags 2 awards

Aside her individual achievement on the awards night, her organization, Guinness Ghana Breweries PLC also bagged two prestigious awards, underscoring the company’s absolute commitment to diversity, gender and inclusion.

Guinness Ghana won the award for Excellence in Women Empowerment Strategy and HR Innovation of the Year: Alcoholic & Non-Alcoholic Beverage (Manufacturing).

In the area of empowering women, the company among other thing ensures that there is 50:50 ratio of women to men in all vacancy shortlisting for interviews as well as 50:50 ratio of women to men the firm’s interview panel.

The purpose is to increase the chances of having a 50:50 ratio hire of men to women in the business and getting to an eventual 50:50 gender parity in the business.

–

Source: Guinness Ghana

]]>https://tanoebusiness.com/guinness-ghanas-hr-director-adjudged-woman-hr-professional-of-the-year/feed/01D1F ceramics factory commissioned at Kponehttps://tanoebusiness.com/1d1f-ceramics-factory-commissioned-at-kpone/
https://tanoebusiness.com/1d1f-ceramics-factory-commissioned-at-kpone/#respondThu, 28 Feb 2019 13:59:15 +0000https://tanoebusiness.com/?p=5777A new ceramics factory under the One District One Factory (1D1F) project has been commissioned at Kpone in the Greater Accra Region.

President Akufo-Addo unveiled the state-of-the-art factory on Wednesday, February 27, to give a boast to his flagship industrial policy.

Speaking at the launch, President Akufo-Addo said such investments show the excellent relations between Ghana and China.

Mr. Akufo-Addo thanked managers and promoters of Fijian Sentuo Ceramic Tile Factory for the significant investment they have made in Ghana’s economy.

Managing Director of Sentuo Ceramic, Xu Ning Quan, praised President Akufo-Addo and his administration for creating an enabling environment for the business community.

In line with the long-term vision of the company, the MD said that over 10,000 direct and 20,000 indirect jobs would be created in the next five years.

“There would be new investments in Ghana with attendant technologies that develop skills of local people to help improve the local economy through industrialization and heavy manufacturing with the ultimate aim of reducing importation of goods that can be produced in Ghana.”

The company, DGN Online gathered, will be employing some 1,500 employees and 90% of its raw materials will be sourced from Ghana, mainly from the Central and Western regions.

It will be made to an outstanding individual living and working in Africa, who combines strong journalism skills, on-air flair, and an exceptional talent in telling African stories with the ambition and potential to become a star of the future.

As well as spending time with the BBC in London, the winner will also get to travel to Africa to report a story – and have that story shared across the continent and the world.

Waihiga said that you could always sense “the passion in the way Komla told the African story”.

“His will to change the narrative about Africa was one of the reasons he stood out amongst other international broadcasters,” the 2018 award winner said.

“I feel the placement at the BBC – working with Komla’s friends and colleagues – has helped me to continue Komla’s remarkable work, and I look forward to a day when more African journalists of the calibre of Komla will be able to tell unique African stories from different outlets around the world.”

Waihiga will take part in the 2019 launch event, chairing a debate for the BBC World Service about the power of young Nigerians in the forthcoming elections.

Speaking ahead of the launch, Jamie Angus, director of the BBC World Service Group, said:

“In an era when impartial and factual journalism has never mattered more, it’s important that we look to the journalists who know, understand and can contextualise African stories for global audiences so that we can offer a full picture of what’s happening across the continent.

“All of the previous winners have shown they’re exceptional journalists, and have brought insights in to how to improve engagement with local audiences.

“We’re very pleased to be continuing Komla’s legacy and are looking forward to finding another outstanding journalist from the continent.”